Paul Cezanne was born in Aix-en-Provence
in 1839, his father was a wealthy banker and merchant. He developed an
interest in art early on in life, but his father was determined that he
should pursue a more stable career.

From 1852 to 1858 Cezanne received a solid
education in the humanities at the College Bourbon in Aix. Here he became
a friend of Emile Zola. In 1859 he went to study law at the University
of Aix, but only lasted a year before confessing to his father that he
wanted to move to Paris and work as an artist. He was strongly encouraged
in this decision by his childhood friend, Emile Zola who was already living
in the capital at the time. Cezanne's father eventually agreed to finance
this change of career. Les Quatre Saisons (The Four Seasons) (1860,
Paris, Petit Palais), with which he decorated the Jas de Bouffan,
a country house which his father had just brought, is mainly notable for
a youthful clumsiness.

However, Cezanne's first stay in Paris
only lasted 6 months - deeply dissatisfied with his painting skill, he
destroyed most of his canvasses and returned home full of self doubt and
started working in his father's business.

Early Paintings:
First Contacts With Impressionism

A year later, he decided to try painting
again. His early works are dark and moody and remain so for a while. He
failed the entrance exams for the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and the
Paris Salon also
rejected his paintings. It was around this time that Pissarro introduced
him to the Impressionist painters Manet
(1832-83), Renoir (1841-1919) and Degas
(1834-1917).

From 1862 to 1869, moving between Aix and
Paris, Cezanne witnessed the conflict between the dull culture of official
circles and the revolutionary realism of Courbet
(1819-77) and the Salon
des Refuses of 1863. The work of Delacroix
(1798-1863), which combined traditional subject-matter with a modern,
painterly style, appeared to Cezanne, in the retrospective exhibition
of 1864, to offer a style that suited him. Receptive to all these diffferent
influences, Cezanne went to meetings at the Cafe Guerbois and was
fascinated by the bold, emotional effects of the work of Theodore
Gericault (1791-1824) and Honore Daumier
(1808-79).

In 1870, at the age of 30 his style changed.
He met Hortense Fiquet, who became his mistress and future wife. The
black morbidness that had characterized his works to date disappeared
and as his colour palette became
lighter he turned his attention to landscapes. This period is known
as his 'constructive' period and is characterized by hatched brushstrokes.

Exhibits With
Impressionists

In 1872-3, after the birth of his son,
Cezanne settled at Auvers-sur-Oise , near Camille
Pissarro (1830-1903) who was to prove a considerable influence. The
two men spent time painting together. Pissarro introduced him to Impressionism,
and his work was exhibited alongside the other Impressionist
painters in the now famous 1874 exhibition, held in the studios which
the photographer Nadar had just vacated on the 2nd floor of 35 Boulevard
des Capucines, and which he kindly lent them.

Secure in his personal life with Hortense
Fiquet, and with his friends Pissarro, Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927) and
Dr Gachet around him, he painted landscapes like the (House
of the Hanged Man) (Maison du Pendu) (1873, Musee d'Orsay)
and still lifes like the Buffet (Sideboard) in the Budapest Museum
(1873-7) that reveal a strongly personal vision.

Preserving psychological analysis for his
challenging, passionate self-portraits (Lecomte Collection 1873-6; Phillips
Collection, Washington, 1877), Cezanne focused in his other works on capturing
the subtleties of volume and tone. The geometrical arrangement of Madame
Cezanne au Fauteuil Rouge (Madame Cezanne in a Red Armchair) (1877,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), the calm dialogue of Nature Morte au
Vase et aux Fruits (Still Life with Vase of Fruit) (1877, Metropolitan
Museum), the arrangement of trees and water in his peaceful Bridge
at Maincy (1879, Musee d'Orsay) - all show a preoccupation with
form and composition. The rhythmic variations and deliberarely stylized
bodies in the Lutte d'amour (1875-6, private collection, Washington)
and the Bathers, male and female,which from that time on he began
to paint, recall Rubens and Titian.

In 1877 Cezanne showed 16 oils and watercolours
at the third Impressionist exhibition in the empty apartment which Gustave
Caillebotte (1848-94) had rented at 6 rue Le Peletier for the occasion.
This time the show was boldly entitled "Exhibition of Impressionists",
despite opposition from Degas (1834-1917), and was to remain the most
significant of all the group's showings. It consisted of 230 works by
eighteen painters, but those of Cezanne (and Alfred
Sisley) were a revelation. Unrecognised and scorned up to this point,
he now received exceptional respect from his comrades, who set aside one
entire wall of the central room for his oil paintings (still-lifes, landscapes,
and a portrait of Chocquet) and watercolours. Unfortunately, despite all
these efforts, as well as greater interest from the public, few paintings
sold. Depressed by this reception and offended by the sneers of press
and public, Cezanne stopped exhibiting with his friends and colleagues.

However, he enjoyed no more success with
the official Salon jury, which rejected Cezanne's submissions every
year from 1864 to 1881. Finally, in 1882, following the intervention of
a friend, it accepted Cezanne's submission Portrait of Louis-Auguste
Cezanne, Father of the Artist, (1866, National Gallery of Art, Washington,
DC), which was his first and last Salon exhibit.

Post-Impressionist
Development

In the early 1880s Cezanne and his family
settled in Provence where they remained, except for brief trips at home
and abroad, until his death. The move signalled a clear break from Paris-centred
Impressionism and reflected Cezanne's preference for his native south.

At intervals, Cezanne visited Paris where
he would sometimes be seen at the Nouvelle-Athenes cafe. More often, however,
he was in the provinces: wirh Zola at Medan in 1880; wirh Pissarro at
Pomoise in 1881; with Renoir (1841-1919) at La Roche-Guyon, then at Marseilles,
where he met Adolphe Monticelli (1824-86), a favourite of Napoleon III,
in 1883; with Claude Monet (1840-1926) and with
Renoir at L'Estaque in 1884. This was a time of fertile maturity, when
Cezanne moved away from the Impressionists, improved his brushwork, and
worked ceaselessly at the same motifs.

Although Pissarro continued to paint faithfully
from nature, Cezanne began to react against such a lack of structure.
He said he wanted to create something 'solid and durable, like the art
of the museums'. He turned his attention to still life, painting over
200 as he demonstrated his analysis of nature, stating that the most common
underlying geometric shape of nature is the 'cylinder, sphere and the
cone'. (Apples and Oranges, 1895-1900, Musee d'Orsay).

He wanted to 'do Poussin from life' by
treating nature 'with cylinder and sphere'. Accordingly the subjects which
he chose from nature, among them Gardanne (1886, Barnes Foundation,
Merion), the rocks at Aix (1887, Tate Gallery, London), and the sea at
L'Estaque (1882-5, Metropolitan Museum and Musee d'Orsay; 1886-90, Art
Institute of Chicago), were submitted to a process of analysis partly
based on geometrical principles (cylinder, sphere and cone etc.), and
partly on the desire to release the medium of painting from its primary
descriptive function. The light harmony of Vase bleu (Blue Vase)
(1883-7, Musee d'Orsay) seems to preserve the delicacy of his watercolours,
with their controlled rhythm and fine lines.

Cezanne produced over 400 of these watercolours
but, outside a small circle of collectors that included Renoir and Degas,
they remained unknown until the art dealer Ambroise
Vollard (1866-1939) exhibited them in 1905. They include such remarkable
works as La Route (The Road) (1883-7, Art Institute of Chicago);
Le Lac d' Annecy (1896, City Art Gallery, St Louis, Missouri);
Trois Cranes (Three Skulls) (1900-6, Art Institute of Chicago);
and the Pont des Trois-Sautets (1906, Cincinnati Museum).

Irritable, defiant and, from 1886, increasingly
isolated (in that year his father had died and he had broken off relations
with Zola, whose L'Oeuvre, which had used him partly as a model,
had wounded him), Cezanne was now known to only a few intimates. But although
a mysterious figure, he had a certain fame. The Nabis,
led by Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), Paul
Serusier (1865-1927), and Maurice Denis (1870-1943), were from then
on profoundly influenced by him.

By 1890 Cezanne had become so reclusive
that painters in Paris thought he was dead. In 1886, he had inherited
the family estate together with some 400,000 francs ($400,000), from
his father, which made him a wealthy man. Sadly, he also contracted
diabetes which caused great difficulties in his relationship with Hortense
(whom he had married in 1886) and his family. Artistically speaking,
it wasn't until the mid-1890s that his works began to attract the serious
acclaim they deserved. Ambroise Vollard organised an exhibition of his
works in 1895. It had been 20 years since his works had been seen in
the capital. The 100 paintings shown aroused a great deal of attention
and resulted in a significant rise in the value of his work. In 1897
Vollard bought every painting in his studio, and in 1900 he showed three
works at the World Fair: the Berlin Museum bought one.

See also the art collector Duncan
Phillips (1886-1966), who was a passionate collector of both Bonnard
and Cezanne.

Final Masterpieces

Between about 1890 and 1900 Cezanne produced
a group of major works of Post-Impressionist
painting that, in contrast to the brilliant and ephemeral world of
the Impressionists, aimed to be 'something solid, like the art of the
museums'. In the breadth of Woman with a Coffee Pot (1890-5, Musee d'Orsay),
in the dynamic and masterly Mardi Gras (1888, Pushkin Museum),
or in the important series of The Card Players, probably inspired
by the work of Le Nain Brothers
in Aix Museum (1890-5, versions held in various museums), Cezanne showed
the full range of his genius. Analysis often charged with emotion characterizes
The Boy with the Red Vest (1890-5, E.G.Buhrle Foundation and other
museums), Man Smoking a Pipe (1890, Hermitage Museum), Portrait
of Ambroise Vollard (1899, Petit Palais, Paris) and - one of his most
famous landscape paintings
- Le Lac d' Annecy (1896, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London).
Two other gems from Cezanne's final period are Lady in Blue (1900,
Hermitage) and The Young Italian Woman Leaning on her Elbow (1900),
a classical portrait which was bought by Matisse, and is now in the J.Paul
Getty museum.

Admired by young painters (he was visited
by Bemard Camoin while, at the Salon
des Independants of 1901, Maurice Denis exhibited his Homage
a Cezanne), and finally recognized at the Salon d'Automne of
1903, Cezanne continued to work at the themes that obsessed him. He produced
endless versions of the figurative Les Baigneurs (1900-5, Barnes
Foundation, Merion; National Gallery, London) - culminating in his masterpiece,
the Large Bathers (Grandes Baigneuses) (1898-1905, London/Philadelphia)
- as well as landscapes of Mont Sainte-Victoire (1882-1906, versions
in several museums), a well-known landmark near Aix.

With allusive, nervous brushwork, in the
short time that remained to him he created the dreamlike vibration of
Le Chateau Noir (1906, versions in Pushkin Museum; Museum of Art,
Philadelphia; Buhrle Collection, Zurich).

Although Cezanne's health deteriorated
in later life, he still made the short journey to his studio to paint
everyday. He usually travelled by carriage, and one day, angered by the
increase in the fare, he decided to walk. It started to rain, he caught
a chill, which turned to pneumonia. A week later, in October 1906, he
died.

Legacy, Reputation
As an Artist

Cezanne's influence on the history
of art was huge. A master of most painting
genres, his use of colour had something in common with post-impressionists
like Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) and Van
Gogh (1853-1890). But it was his constant search for an underlying
structure to composition that paved the way for the revolution in abstract
art in the 20th century. He constantly questioned what he saw and how
he represented it on canvas, an approach continued after his death by
still life artists like Giorgio Morandi
(1890-1964), Georges Braque (1882-1963)
and Juan Gris (1887-1927). A retrospective
of 57 paintings took place in 1907 at the Salon
d'Automne, which exerted a huge influence on Picasso and Braque
who were in the process of formulating their prototype
Cubism, as well as the Worpswede painter Paula
Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) and many others.

A key figure in French
painting, Cezanne's vision was exploited by a wide variety of modern
artists, from Fauvists to Cubists. It was promoted in England by Post-Impressionist
exhibitions organized by Roger Fry
in 1912 and 1913. Cezanne's conception appeared from then on, and for
a considerable time to come, to be the starting point for all pictorial
analysis.

Collections

Cezanne's work includes about 900 paintings
and 400 watercolours, and is represented in most of the best
art museums throughout the world, notably the Musee d'Orsay, Barnes
Foundation (Merion, Pennsylvania), the Metropolitan Museum of Art and
the Museum of Modern Art (New York), and the Courtauld Institute and the
National Galllery (London). Also, following the nationalization of collections
assembled by Sergei Shchukin
(1854-1936) andIvan Morozov (1871-1921),
works by Cezanne can be found in the Hermitage in St Petersburg.

Cezanne's Greatest
Paintings

Here is a short selection of what we believe
are Paul Cezanne's finest pictures.